“A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. To live is to be slowly born.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I was looking through some writing exercises the other day-(I am doing a little writing course at present) and came across one that asked the individual to write about their secret self/selves! It made me think (not surprising as a lot of things make me think a lot!!) I had a small revelation about all the secret selves inside of me…and of course in all of us. Psychologists would say that different parts of the self identity are generated by the different parts of the brain/mind collective; they are a product of genetics, formative training, and experience and as Jung would have it the collective archetypes inherent in us just being human. The variables are enormous and in my thinking way (analytical to distraction …ah is this analytical self just another archetype??) I could isolate these secret selves down to the absolute minutiae of their particular personality traits…but really they can also be looked at under just a few headings…pretty much as follows…the only issue now is are these so called secret selves still secret, as it seems I have exposed them out of their secret shadows……..



1. The child: Impetuous, demanding secret me (or not so secret when I really want something done around the house, or again really want to eat chocolate!) The me that wants to be the centre of attention, that does not cope well with compromise and can a throw a mean tantrum! This secret me is also the me that is often afraid, who wants to hide under the sheets and escape the uncertainties of life.
2. The Bossy old woman: The me that often values the order of things more than the soul and heart of things. She who can demand your attention in a single look and command your acquiescence in one firm word. This me can be sharp, tactless and in her fear sometimes downright cruel, because yes, the bossy old woman is also afraid, not of the unknown so much as of the uncontrollable.
3. Adventurous power woman: This secret me is undaunted by challenge, open, willing to try the new and unchartered, a Pollyanna of positivity and unwavering in her ability to keep going no matter what! She inspires, supports and motivates, seeks new knowledge, dances withy joy and remembers how it was to fall in love. She can act before thinking and react before responding, sometimes to her own regret...but she is ever the warrior.
4. The spiritual journeyer: This secret me seeks to find the deep heart of things. Opting for the middle way, the simple path and mindfulness she can sometimes get caught in the web of over analyzing (is that what is happening here??????) At her best she is wise, connected, intuitive and sensitive,a true Goddess,a woman with heart, at her worst she is a watershed of guilt wanting to be more than she is and better than she can be. Yet, in moments she can generate the divine and be as wise as she is naïve.
5. The Mother: Divine, as all mothers must be in their role as life givers, this secret me is above all else made to serve! She who is always willing to give just that little bit more, go without that one more thing and lay down her all for those whom she loves. She has been known to cry in movies about animals and children and anything else that seems helpless…she who feels genuine pain watching the news, she who put her self last and then some if it would ease the pain of another…but who can harass and fuss and generally irritate in her efforts to fix everything even the unfixable…




Jung said, “The archetype is . . . an irrepresentable, unconscious, pre-existent form that seems to be part of the inherited structure of the psyche and can therefore manifest itself spontaneously anywhere, at any time…”



I never know which me or pair of me’s or triplets and so on will emerge at any given time, generally they are always all there, juggling for a voice! Sometimes it seems as if I am helpless to choose between them…yet all are a part of the whole that is me and really there is no choice only self, secrets and all…some may know bits of me more than they know other parts of me, yet all are who I am…


We are all a mix of many ingredients, like a great big cake, some are chocolate, some fruit, some coffee or poppy seed, but underneath our obvious exteriors lies a mix of many essential things…the secret parts of the whole. It is impossible to judge the cake on just one ingredient, just as it is impossible to judge the individual on just aspect, one action, one moment of their life….therefore it is wise not to judge, at least not until we are aware of all the ingredients…and then it is less of a judgment about what we will eat and more of a case of preference…